Intimate Partner Violence Risk among Undergraduate Women from an Urban Commuter College: the Role of Navigating Off- and On-Campus Social Environments

Abstract

The current attention that is being paid to college sexual assault in policy circles and popular media overlooks a critical issue: the possible role played by the urban social environment in intimate partner violence (IPV) risk for the large number of urban commuter college students throughout the USA and beyond. This article helps to illuminate this dynamic using qualitative research collected at an urban commuter campus in New York City. Specifically, we conducted focus groups and in-depth interviews with 18 female undergraduate students, exploring the nature and consequences of IPV in students' lives, perceived prevalence of IPV, and resources for addressing IPV. Our results indicate that college attendance may both elevate and protect against IPV risk for students moving between urban off-and on-campus social environments. Based on this, we present a preliminary model of IPV risk for undergraduate women attending urban commuter colleges. In particular, we find that enrolling in college can sometimes elevate risk of IPV when a partner seeks to limit and control their student partner's experience of college and/or is threatened by what may be achieved by the partner through attending college. These findings suggest a role for urban commuter colleges in helping to mitigate IPV risk through policy formulation and comprehensive ongoing screening and prevention activities.KEYWORDS Intimate partner violence, Urban social environment, Commuter college students INTRODUCTIONSexual violence on college campuses has recently emerged as an issue of urgent policy and programmatic concern in the USA, but it is only one of the several types of violence that threaten the health, well-being, and academic success of college women.1-3 The risk for intimate partner violence (IPV), including Bphysical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse,^1 among women is greatest between the ages of 18 to 24 years, 2 a period when many women enter college. While the prevalence of IPV among students internationally has been estimated to range from 17 to 45 % for physical assaults in the last year, 4 women 6,7 In a sample of American college students, 43 % of women (vs. 28 % of men) reported having experienced physical abuse, sexual abuse, or other forms of IPV (e.g., controlling behavior, verbal abuse, excessive calling or texting, etc.), and over half of the students reported having these experiences while in college.8 Additionally, women are more likely than men to experience physical limitations and overall performance and cognitive impairment as a result of IPV, 9 which elevate their risk for college interruption or permanent dropout.While a substantial amount of research reports prevalence and types of IPV in college women, most studies have not examined the context within which women attending college experience IPV, and none that we know of have examined these experiences among urban commuter college women in particular. Instead, most studies of commuter students focus on examining the academic su...

Sexual violence in the college population: a systematic review of disclosure and campus resources and services

“…, Garcia et al . , Tsui & Santamaria ). Additionally, individual factors that may influence students’ knowledge of campus SV resources/services were explored (Hayes‐Smith & Levett , Walsh et al .…”

“…In contrast, two qualitative studies indicated that students were in fact knowledgeable about the available on‐campus SV resource/services (Garcia et al . , Tsui & Santamaria ).…”

“…Participant ages ranged between 18 (Hayes‐Smith & Levett , Garcia et al . )–52 years (Tsui & Santamaria ), with mean and/or median age of students ranging from 18·5 (Zinzow & Thompson )–23·5 years (Tsui & Santamaria ).…”

“…One study focused specifically on Asian Americans (Koo et al . ), and another study consisted primarily of Hispanic participants (Tsui & Santamaria ). Although some studies included males ( k = 6), the majority of samples consisted of females.…”

“…Low utilisation was found by several quantitative (Hayes‐Smith & Levett , Walsh et al . ) and qualitative (Tsui & Santamaria ) studies. In contrast, one qualitative study (Garcia et al .…”